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Nissim Ezekiel
| death_date = January | death_place = | birth_place = Mumbai, Maharashtra, India | occupation = Poet, Playwright, Art critic, | nationality = Indian | period = 1952–2004 | genre = Indian Writing in English | influences = | influenced = | website = | signature= NissimEzekiel_AutographedLetter.jpg }} Nissim Ezekiel (Marathi: निस्सिम एझेकिएल, (16 December 1924 - 9 January 2004) was a Marathi-speaking Jewish Indian poet, playwright, editor and art critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian poetry in English. Life Youth Ezekiel was born on 16 December 1924 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. His father, Moses Ezekiel, was a professor of botany at Wilson College, University of Mumbai, and his mother was principal of her own school. The Ezekiels belonged to Mumbai's Marathi-speaking Jewish community, known as the 'Bene Israel'. In 1947, Ezekiel earned a B.A. in Literature from Wilson College. For the next year he taught English literature and published literary articles. After dabbling in radical politics for a while, he sailed to England in November 1948. He studied philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. After three and a half years stay, Ezekiel worked his way home as a deck-scrubber aboard a ship carrying arms to Indochina. He married Daisy Jacob in 1952. In the same year, Fortune Press published his first collection of poetry, The Bad Day. He joined The Illustrated Weekly of India as an assistant editor in 1953 and stayed there for two years. Soon after his return from London, he published his second book of verse Ten Poems. For the next 10 years, he also worked as a broadcaster on Art and literature for All India Radio. Career Ezekiel's first book, The Bad Day, appeared in 1952. He published another volume of poems, The Deadly Man in 1960. After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954–59), he co-founded the literary monthly Jumpo, in 1961. He became art critic of The Names of India (1964–66) and edited Poetry India (1966–67). From 1961 to 1972, he headed the English department of Mithibai College, Bombay. The Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry was published in 1965. During this period he held short-term tenure as visiting professor at University of Leeds (1964) and University of Pondicherry (1967). In 1967, while in America, he experimented with LSD. In 1969, Writers Workshop, Kozhikode published his The Damn Plays. A year later, he presented an art series of ten programmes for Indian television. In 1976, he translated Jawarharlal Nehru poetry from Marathi, in collaboration with Vrinda Nabar, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology. His poem The Night Of The Scorpion is used as study material in Indian and Columbian schools. Ezekiel also penned poems in ‘Indian English’ like the one based on instruction boards in his favourite Irani café. His poems are used in NCERT and ICSE English textbooks. Recognition He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his Poetry collection, "Latter-Day Psalms", by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. Publications Poetry *''A Time To Change, and other poems''. London: Fortune Press, 1952. *''Sixty Poems''. Bombay: 1953. *''The Third''. Bombay: Strand Book Shop, 1959. *''The Unfinished Man: Poems written in 1959''. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1960. *''The Exact Name: Poems, 1960-1964''. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1965. *''Hymns in Darkness''. Delhi & New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. *''Latter-Day Psalms''. Delhi & Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1982. *''Collected Poems, 1952-1988''. Delhi & Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989. *''Three Indian poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Dom Moraes''. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1991. *''Collected Poems''. New Delhi & New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Plays *''Three Plays''. Calcutta: P. Lal, 1969. *''Don't Call It Suicide: A tragedy''. Madras: Macmillan India, 1993. Prose *''Selected Prose''. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992. Translated *Indira Sant, Snake-skin, and other poems of India (translated with Vrinda Nabar). Bombay: Nirmala Sadanand, 1975.Snake-skin and other poems of India, Catalogue, National Library of Australia. Web, July 29, 2014. Edited * Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Emerson Reader. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1965. * Martin Luther King, A Martin Luther King Reader. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1969. *''Another India: An anthology of contemporary Indian fiction and poetry''. New Delhi & New York: Penguin, 1990. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Nissim Ezekiel, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 29, 2014. See also * List of Indian poets writing in English References *R. Raj Rao, Nissim Ezekiel: The authorized biography. Viking, 2000. Notes External links ;Poems *Nissim Ezekiel at AllPoetry (8 poems) *Nissim Ezekiel at PoemHunter (10 poems) ;Audio / video *Nissim Ezekiel at YouTube ;About *Nissim Ezekiel at Literarism * Nissim Ezekiel obituary at The Guardian of London *"Nissim Ezekiel: The father of modernity in Indian-English poetry" by K.V. Dominic Category:Indian Jews Category:Indian poets Category:Jewish poets Category:English-language poets from India Category:Indian writers Category:1924 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Category:Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award Category:Mithibai College Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets